Acquired Digital Audiobook by: I am a blog tour hostess with Audiobookworm Promotions wherein I have the opportunity to receive audiobooks for review or adoption (reviews outside of organised blog tours) and host guest features on behalf of authors and narrators alike. I have been hosting for nearly a year now and I appreciate the diversity of genre selections and styles of stories to choose from whilst I navigate the audiobook realms!
I received a complimentary audiobook copy of “Colourless” via Audiobookworm Promotions in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why I wanted to listen to this story:
When I first saw this blog tour coming up on the calendar, I thought the premise was quite uniquely different – especially, as I was starting to get into the mood for reading Speculative Fiction per my annual participation in #RRSciFiMonth (Sci Fi November) wherein I have a steady focus on Science Fiction. The aspects of the story-line which intrigued me most were how there is a Speculative angle within it – the condition of losing one’s colour – not just in the context of your skin tone but in the objects and world round you – where everything truly is disappearing into the shadows of being colourless.
The only thing I worried about going into this novel is if I would be able to connect to the world-building as there are certain things set in the world of this novel which felt a bit confusing at first glance. Being Speculative at it’s core, I knew there was a layer of fantastical etched into it but there was a part of me which worried about the elements of how this world functions and how it’s put into order. Nevertheless, what truly intrigued me was the main aspect of what gave it’s most chilling Suspense – how does a person become devoid of colour and how does the world they live in suddenly feel erased?
Colourless
In Domengrad, there are rules all must live by: Fear the Gods. Worship the Magicians. Forsake the Iconoclasts.
To Annabelle Klein, the rules laid down by the Magicians are the mere ramblings of stuffy old men. As far as she’s concerned, the historic Iconoclasts, heretics who nearly destroyed the Magicians so long ago, are nothing but myth. She has much more important matters to worry about.
Heiress to a manor mortgaged down to its candlesticks and betrothed to her loathsome cousin, sixteen-year-old Annabelle doubts the gods could forsake her more.
Then Annabelle is informed of her parents’ sudden and simultaneous deaths, and all of the pigment drips out of her skin and hair, leaving her colourless. Within moments, Annabelle is invisible and forgotten by all who know her.
Living like a wraith in her own home, Annabelle discovers that to regain her color she must solve the mystery behind her parents’ murders and her strange transformation.
Meanwhile, hundreds of the Magicians’ monks, with their all-black eyes and conjoined minds, have usurped control of Annabelle’s family manor. An Iconoclast is rumored to be about—a person who they claim goes unseen, unheard, and lost to memory, yet is the greatest threat to all of Domengrad. For the first time in a hundred years, the monks plan to unleash the dire wolves of old.
Their only target: Annabelle.
Places to find the book:
ASIN: B075ZZZV23
on 2nd October, 2017
Length: 9 hours, 22 minutes (Unabridged)
Self Published Audiobook
This is the first book of the Colourless series
Formats Available: Paperback and Audiobook
About Rita Stradling
Rita Stradling is the author of Ensnared, Making Bad Choices, The Deception Dance series, the Dakota Kekoa series and The Fourteen Day Soul Detox Novella Serial. She has a BA in Art History and a particular love for modern and medieval art.
Rita lives with her husband and son in Northern California. She has an insatiable novel addiction and mostly reads young adult and adult: romance, paranormal, urban fantasy and high fantasy.
why I am choosing to spotlight this audiobook:
When I first started listening to Colourless, I was overtaken by how powerful the narrator Lauri Jo Daniels was conveying the somberness of Annabelle’s father – you truly felt this man had reached rock bottom in his life. The heaviness of his emotional keeling was expertly conveyed – his tone nearly crushed your own soul listening to how empty and hollow his hope was for his own future but how convinced he was his daughter had a chance at thriving in his absence – even if his wife was trying to encourage him out of his reverie for all things ill-begotten in their lives. For this conviction within the narrator’s voice is what held me glued to the audiobook as it showed the capacity of the narrator to not only pull you forward into what a character felt but perhaps, show a hint of how the narrator connected to the story-line.
As the story started to shift in and round Annabele’s parents, there is a heavy somberness murmuring through ‘Colourless’ as you cannot help but acknowledge the emotional anguish running through the voice of the narrator – as if to impart, somehow the hardest thing to accept is one’s own mortality. This character (Annabelle’s father) has been raised to understand the cycle of their life yet it’s not the same as realising your own time has come round to it’s conclusion. This omnious beginning is told from the perspective of what you observe whilst your mind is having trouble shifting past the reality of what is happening to you. His wife tried to gently calm his spirit but with his thoughts conflicted and mixed into his emotional angst, nothing could offer a balm of solace to his worry about the absence of days ahead of him. She in turn turnt fiercely strong in her resolve to safeguard her husband and daughter; she refused to accept their fates were ill-wont for despair and sorrow.
His only consolation was his daughter – who would survive him and her mother – without the knowledge of why they would perish in such a way as they were destined. Warren and Hazel are clutched in unthinkable shock when they both are removed from their home at the same time, on the same day and in the same method of exit. They had no forewarning and then, they were gone.
Annabelle was poetic in how she saw her life and the world round her – she was connected to the natural world with a giddiness of joy. She had an innocence about her which was incredible given the circumstances of her family. Until of course, the very colour of her being started to seep away from her – her colourfull essence was leaching out of her and away from her – as if a palette of a painter was discharging his colours out of disinterest or disgust. Annabelle couldn’t believe what was happening to her – (nor I) as her lady’s maid and housekeeper witnessed what she was experiencing – but only Annabelle was left without answers. You could feel the emotional keel hitting Annabelle – finding out as she had about her parent’s and now, standing outside her cherished home full of the shock of finding herself left behind; unacknowledged and alone.
Everything she once loved about nature felt like it was criticising her with pointed glares of distrust or disinterest. Her voice was earnestly faltering to keep the strength she once felt so full and earnest – her intermediate concerns were for her parents, if she could only just understand what happened to them. Swirls of rumours of madness were quickly tugging at her ears and mind – first planted by her servants but now questioned by her sense of self – finding herself altered and changed. She couldn’t rationalise what was happening to her and thereby, it felt alien to be herself and to be in this place where everything had changed within such a short period of time.
Despite all of these keen insights I was gathering as I first started to listen to the novel, there was a period of time shortly thereafter I lost the foundation of the story. I had trouble sorting out what was happening and why – I had to back-track to read the synopsis and then, try to re-insert part of the world-building into what I was hearing except to say, I was losing time within the story rather than feeling connected within it.
Where I faltered was understanding the concepts within the world – as before anything can be disclosed about their origins or who they are (truly) – the key characters go ‘poof’ – herein I refer to Annabelle’s parents. When it’s Annabelle’s time to arrive into the foreground, we’re jolted into her transformation or rather, disintegration into her current state – but part of this transformation did not quite convey to me she was ‘lost and unseen’ from those around her. I never fully connected to the fact she was more ghost-like than tangible, less real than she were previously as at first I interpreted this as a spin on a film I enjoyed watching years ago called: Pleasantville?
With this in mind, I started losing more of my understanding of what Annabelle was facing and to be honest – I didn’t fully feel rooted into her world. It wasn’t the narrator’s fault, however, as I truly felt she put a lot of her heart into conveying the characters – her voice really resonated with me as she brought this story to life – my key issue was feeling there should have been more of a background introduction into how this world is ordered and how these ominous happenings were directly affecting their citizens. Without this background, I honestly felt like I was treading water – I couldn’t get emotionally invested into Annabelle’s struggle because I honestly couldn’t understand how this world functioned.
I am unsure if I listened to this at the wrong time to fully engage with the heart of the story itself or if it’s simply one of those stories I cannot connect with overall. There are elements of it I loved hearing – especially how Annabelle first discovers she is becoming ‘colourless’ as it felt like the author’s passion for Art & Art History was showing in the depiction of this loss but unfortunately for me, it was not enough to hold me within the confines of this world. This is why I’m spotlighting this audiobook because for me, I found it simply wasn’t my cuppa tea at this point in time.
This blog tour is courtesy of Audiobookworm Promotions:
Whilst participating on:
{SOURCES: Cover art of “Colourless”, book synopsis, author & narrator biographies, photographs of Rita Stradling and Lauri Jo Daniels as well as the Audiobookworm Promotions badge and the audiobook tour badge were all provided by Audiobookworm Promotions and used with permission. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets embedded by codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Book Spotlight Banner and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2017.
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